Chromebook Pixel goes on sale for $1,300 with 5-hour battery, WiFi only

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It’s official: the Chromebook Pixel is real, and Google will start selling it immediately for the eye-popping price of $1,300. That’s for the Wi-Fi only version. The LTE-equipped model will set you back another $150.

The Pixel looks an awful lot like the machine we saw recently when a “promotional video” leaked from a YouTube account whose owners later claimed had been hacked. But what about the important details?

It all starts with the screen, a 12.85-inch display with a native resolution of 2560 x 1700 that outputs 400 nit — brightness that matches the latest Macbook Pro. And yes, it’s a touchscreen. Google has also clad the display in Gorilla Glass, so it’ll easily withstand the rigors of daily use.

The shell is anodized aluminum, topped with a glass trackpad that Google says has been laser-tuned for precision. The chicklet keyboard is backlit, and it’s also used to hide the Chromebook Pixel’s speakers out of sight. That doesn’t affect the sound quality, according to Google: the Pixel is still capable of producing “powerful…crisp, sound.”

Processing power comes from a dual-core 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 chip. There’s 4GB of RAM to handle your hundred-plus open tab,s and a 32GB solid state drive for fast-booting access to the cloud (and a smattering of offline files). The Chromebook Pixel also offers a mini Display Port for hooking up a secondary monitor, an SD card reader, 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 3.0.

A couple items on the spec sheet are a bit disappointing. First off, the two USB ports on the Pixel are only USB 2.0. On a $1,300 in 2013, USB 3.0 should be a requirement. Next up is the battery. Google says it’s good for about five hours of use. That’s good, but certainly not great. When the first Chromebooks were being shown off, Google promised eye-popping, all-day battery life, and five hours is anything but. Again, for $1,300, the Chromebook Pixel should offer more.

But hey, you’ll get 1TB of Google Drive space for free — at least for three years, then you can expect to pay $50 per month to keep it (unless Google drops its pricing over that time span, which could certainly happen). QuickOffice will also be included, so you’ll be able to work on office files while you’re offline.

You’ll also get 12 free GoGo Inflight Internet passes to use while you travel, which is nice. Nice enough to make you forget that your Chromebook still can’t run a lot of your core apps and cost more than a well-equipped Macbook Air or Ultrabook? Probably not.